Campus farmer’s market venture proves fruitful

CMU Garden and CulinArt, two organizations that focus on food and marketing, have teamed up to host a farmer’s market on campus.

The farmer’s market, according to CulinArt Director Shelby Cole, is meant “for CulinArt to extend even more efforts towards sustainability on campus.”

Cole believes that by holding events such as the farmer’s market, which is located in Resnik Cafe, students will be able to spend their DineX dollars on fresh groceries and other food staples that they would otherwise have to buy off campus.

First-year chemical engineering major Ben Lam enjoyed having more fresh produce on campus.

“My Interpretation and Argument class decided to take a field trip to the market,” he said. “And I definitely think I’ll go again if they have it in the future.”

The wide variety of produce in the farmer’s market is supplied by the CMU Garden, a student-run organization on campus that owns and tends a garden near the Solar Decathlon House in Donner Ditch.

Junior biology major Molly Berntsen, the president of the CMU Garden, said that the purpose of the garden is for students to get “together to learn sustainable ways of growing food.”

Berntsen was pleased with the way CulinArt has worked with and provided aid to the CMU Garden.

“The CulinArt farmer’s markets are the perfect size for us,” Berntsen said. “Because they occur monthly, we can just bring as much produce as we have available at that time.”

In total, four farmer’s markets are scheduled for this semester. The dates are determined by seasonal changes and harvesting times.

The first two farmer’s markets have already occurred, but the next two are scheduled for Oct. 23 and Nov. 27.